Deep Roots is a discipleship ministry of First United Methodist Church calling God's people to find the depth of God's heart and produce fruit of Kingdom Living.
"This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." [Jeremiah 17: 5-8]
Partnership – a covenant relationship between individuals or groups characterized by mutual cooperation and responsibility, as for the achievement of a specified goal.
Many churches are floundering and failing not because they're not being faithful, they are. The problem I believe is that they're being faithful to the wrong kind of church. Many people have competing views of what it means to be the Church, and often we find good church folk angry and confused not because they're bad people, but because they think about the church differently.
The church is a hodgepodge of faith backgrounds, lifestyles, educations, experiences and needs all trying to live together in community. Many people even are bewildered by whether the church is passive or active, personal or corporate, consuming or contributing organization. Where, for example, does the pastor's spiritual and administrative authority begin and end and where does our personal relationship with Christ enter in? [if at all]
For the next several weeks I'm going to try to look at several of the most common "church metaphors" people have when they think of CHURCH. I hope you will enter into the discussion with me.
The Health Club
Lutheran pastor Michael Foss argues that the central challenge facing many congregations today is to shift their dominant paradigm from being cultures of membership to cultures of discipleship. When Foss describes what he means by a culture of membership, he turns to the model of the now-ubiquitous health club. Writes Foss:
"I don't want to push the analogy too far, but for the sake of illustration, let's think of the membership model of church as similar to the membership model of the modern health club. One becomes a member of a health club by paying dues (in a church, the monthly or weekly offering). Having paid their dues, the members expect the services of the club to be at their disposal. Exercise equipment, weight room, aerobics classes, an indoor track, swimming pool—all there for them, with a trained staff to see that they benefit by them. Members may bring a guest on occasion, but only those who pay their dues have a right to the use of the facilities and the attention of the staff. There is no need to belabor the point. Many who sit in the pews on Sundays have come to think of church membership in ways analogous to how the fitness crowd views membership in a health club." [Michael W. Foss, Power Surge: The six marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church, Fortress Press, 2000.]
Identifying Characteristics
The people in the pews view themselves look for a church that "meets my needs" not "where I can serve".
Seating preference is given to long time members. Membership has it privileges. "This is my pew!" [or hymnal]
Members are empowered to critique the staff on what they like and don't like. Sunday morning sermons, for example, may need to be less challenging and more conducive to comfort.
People are proud to proclaim their status be "long-time members" and not for their service, teaching or sharing.
People expect a visit from the senior pastor when they're in the hospital even if they do not attend regularly.
Giving to the church is conditional upon attending that Sunday and using the services of the church.
There is comfort in having your name on "The Roll" but not in actual life change.
Solutions
Celebrate the testimonies of disciples who really are growing and making a difference.
Engage the entire church in at least one annual study. By engaging everyone in a study, we encourage participation over passivity. This participation may break the barrier to God's heart.
Preaching on Service, Study, and Significance in life will be the bread and butter for life change.
Does anyone know what the church is really supposed to be like?
Does anyone know what education is really supposed to be like?
Being a teacher plagued with the same questions concerning the make-up of schools as are constantly be asked about the make-up of churches, I could not help but ask basically the same question twice, only relating it to schools the second time, because there are just as many “experts” trying to tell educators what is wrong and what can make things “right” in schools as there are “experts” trying to tell pastors and church leaders how to right wrongs and correct mistakes. And the sad thing is, I personally think both the clergical and pedagogical “experts” are, as my mother, also a teacher, used to say, “Gapping at a gnat and swallowing a camel.” So many of them really don’t know; “they are just grabbing at straws.” Perhaps the answer for education is to go back to the basics and to realize that you can’t please and/or meet the needs of everyone.
Perhaps…the answer for the church is the same.
I return to my initial question: Does anyone know what the church is really supposed to be like?
Answer: Yes!
Who? God!
Is there a definitive manual telling us what the church is to be like, what the church is to do; what the people who make up the Body are to act like; what the outcomes and expections are in order to prove that those attending church have learned “their lessons well”? Yes!
What is it? The Bible.
Not written by people who are guessing as to what is right and what is wrong, but written by God and His prophets and His messengers and given to us so that we can become “the church,” the Body of Christ, as God our Father wants us to be so that we can accomplish His purpose and His will for our lives here on earth.
It’s one thing to have a book that tells us exactly what a school is to be like; it’s another thing to have a book that tells us exactly what a church is to be like. There is not one for the former, but we have one for the latter! Why don’t we preach and teach it more?
What is the church to be like? More importantly, I ask, “What does God intend the church to be like?” Check out Act 2:42-47. This is my pastor’s “Dream Church.” Why? Because he is God’s ambassador and he knows this is what God wants him to strive to accomplish here on earth in his pastorate. Unfortuately, my pastor often looses sight of God’s dream, that he has claimed as his own, because the pettiness of those in the church who live in “meland” rather than “Heland” cloud and fog that vision. What a shame! That needs to stop.
So, we have the manual. What about the term “discipleship”? Pastor Foss says, “We must change from the culture of membership to the culture of discipleship.” What’s discipleship? How easy for him to say what not to be. What about explaining as concretely as he does what we are not to be what he believes we are “to be”? What is “discipleship”? What is a “disciple”? Is there somewhere where I can go to find both those words defined as God defines them? Of course! The Bible! So…….?
Let’s go back to the Bible. Let’s have the TRUTH proclaimed in the Bible proclaimed from the pulpits. Let’s have the pastors, the ministers, the priests, etc., preach the TRUTH, pure and simple, God’s TRUTH from the lecturns with courage, boldness, and conviction in order to teach the Body how to act, how to think, and how to be, rather than concentrating on soothing someone’s psyche, not stepping on someone’s toes, and offering people the opportunity to create their “own religion with an eclectic blend of beliefs” designed to offer “warm and cuddly fuzzies” rather than God’s guideposts through the narrow gate.
Let’s stop trying to be everything to everyone. Let’s stop straddling the fence. Let’s stand up for God and what He intended the church to be — a place to worship and honor Him. Let’s be courageous and stand up and tell the TRUTH, God’s TRUTH. Let’s defend those who have the courage to hold people accountable according to God’s TRUTH when they don’t live, speak, and act as God outlines in His Word. Let’s let God’s manual, the Bible, tell us what a church is to be. If we do that, then the statement, “…be faithful and let God be successful” takes on a broader and more significant meaning.
I remember once when I was being trained to use Word software, I was told that each command is enabled in three different ways throughout the program — miss it in one place, find it in another. In searching for specific words on biblegateway.com, I have found that God repeats many of His expectations for our lives and the way we live our lives at least three different times either in three different books or at three different times in the same book. He must consider those thoughts to be important or significant or He would not do so. I don’t know scripture as well as I would like; may not even at the instant I die; but I do know that God tells us at least three different times that His “house is to be a house of prayer,” that He wants us to go “throughout the world and be His witnesses,” and that we “are to love God with all our heart and all our mind and all our soul” along with “loving others as ourselves.” Sounds to me like pretty good cornerstones upon which to remold the church. Bet there is more to accompany these along with the definition of the term “disciple.” How ’bout we pick up the Manual and preach and teach the TRUTH that’s in it and see where that takes the church. Bet we’ll find we have the beginnings of the A242 “Dream Church” that my pastor envisions and God demands.